The Rebel to Rabble Review: Rebel calls for further rollbacks of social distancing protocols

While most provinces and territories have started to roll back the rigid COVID-19-imposed social distancing protocols that effectively shut down all but the essential business, social and recreational activities across Canada since mid-March, it’s not happening quickly enough for Rebel News commander Ezra Levant.

“We were told to stay at home for two weeks,” he notes.

“Well, it’s been two months,” and “the thing is pretty much over,” in his view.

“Show me someone who supports the lock-down today, and I’ll show you someone who is getting paid,” he contends.

“But gym owners, aestheticians, tattoo parlours, restaurants — well, they’re not deemed ‘essential,’ you see. Except of course, to the people who want to go there, or who depend on them for a living.”

That, he suggests, is why it may be time for lockdown-weary Canadians to follow the lead of Atwater, California, which recently declared itself a “sanctuary city” for businesses, churches and other organizations who want to reopen for business despite the ongoing stay-at-home order.

“I like the idea of a sanctuary city for people who want to work, who realize that there is very modest danger, and that we know where it is and where it isn’t,” Levant argues.

“We choose life. We want to live. And maybe we could have some sanctuary for that.”

In a show of cross-border solidarity with the frustrated Californian “patriots” who turned out to protest the ongoing restrictions, Rebel Media also posted a video highlight reel from a recent anti-lockdown rally in a Los Angeles park, courtesy of guest contributor Amanda Head, who, as per her bio, is the “founder and managing editor of The Hollywood Conservative.”

“I asked loyal Rebel News subscribers to help us weather the storm — because of course, the mass unemployment that has been inflicted on our country and across the West has affected our revenue, too,” he recalls.

So far, that campaign has raised $96,734 of its goal of $125,000, according to the latest numbers on the website sidebar.

“But the real story of the pandemic for us, I think, has been our news coverage,” Levant notes.

“Simply put, I think it has been the best in the country, of any media,” from tracking incoming flights from China in Toronto and Calgary to dispatching reporters to the Roxham Road border crossing “to show how hundreds of migrants were walking across into Canada despite the pandemic.”

Rebel staffers also “went through government documents that, apparently,m neither the media nor the opposition did,” leading to a “ton of scoops,” including the revelation that “Trudeau gave nearly a million bucks to the Wuhan Virology Institute literally this year.”

His conclusion: “We are stronger than I thought we’d be. People who never looked at Rebel News before, have discovered us.”

“It’s almost like courts want politics to be decided politically, democratically, not through some lawsuit.

“I’m thrilled that Jim Karahalios won,” he told his Youtube audience.

“I think he may or may not be the best person to lead the party, but whether or not he is, is up to party members.”

Elsewhere on the site, Alberta Rebel Keean Bexte lambastes the “rabid leftists” who, he avers, were “triggered” by the “humanitarian appointment” of “beloved country music star Paul Brandt as head of Alberta’s newly launched anti-human trafficking task force.

“Aside from being a registered nurse, Brandt has won award after award for his work trying to end the exploitation of children around the world,” including setting up the ‘Not In My City’ charity “to raise awareness and take collaborative action to disrupt the systems of child sex trafficking,” he notes.

“They ask for credentials, and Brandt has them. All they need to do is see past their blinding hatred of Kenney to acknowledge that Brandt is one of the leading experts on the ongoing tragedy in all of Alberta.”

Back in Toronto, Rebel mission specialist David Menzies is still keeping tabs on those Canada-bound flights from China, including greeting new arrivals with a camera, boom mic and questions about whether they had their temperatures taken on exiting the plane.

At the same time, he seems to be every bit as sceptical of the current province-wide lockdown as Levant — and particularly, the decision to “ban” overnight summer camp, as announced by Ontario Premier Doug Ford earlier this week.

“Summer camps aren’t just about fun and making friends,” he argues.

“They’re also an important part of the economy, and a great source of jobs for teenagers to be camp counsellors. Banning camps would put much of that great industry out of business,” while forcing “thousands of children and teenagers” to “just stay at home, watching Netflix and playing video games.”

He’s also “worried” that Ford himself “has lost touch with ordinary people,” like the “mom-and-pop operations” behind many overnight camps who “have to earn their entire living during the summer season.”

That’s why he’s inviting Rebel supporters to “help Doug Ford do the right thing” with a petition to “let [him] know RIGHT NOW” how wrong it would be to shut down the summer camp circuit.

“Come on, Ford Nation, let’s do it for the kids!”

Over at Post Millennial, meanwhile, Nico Johnsonhas a full rundown on a new “attack video” from Erin O’Toole’s campaign that warns rival candidate Peter MacKay “cannot beat Justin Trudeau.”

“Just in the past few weeks he and his campaign have had to back down a number of times in the face of media criticism. During the debate over delaying the CPC leadership race, he couldn’t handle even mildly critical media questions without losing his composure,” Delorey added, as per PM.

On that note, here’s a quick rundown on what’s making headlines on the progressive-left side of the activist mediasphere:

Ricochet writer and self-described “political ecologist” Claire O’Manique makes the case for “a bold and ambitious wide-scale Green New Deal” as “a way out of the COVID-19 crisis.”

Rabble political writer Karl Nerenbergwarns that the greatest risks posed by the reopening of the economy will be borne by the “poor and vulnerable” as well as “blue-collar and service sector workers,” while “white collar troops” won’t be called back to the office “any time soon.”